New Belgian black IPA, a collaboration between Dany (Fantôme), Mathieu (Math) and Didier (Flo), hence the name; 75 cl bottle apparently intended for export to North America, through Shelton Brothers (why is it that so many small Belgian breweries reserve their best beers for export?). I love black IPA and am always interested in Fantôme for their idiosyncratic, often downright bizarre beers, so I am very curious about this one. Pours a cloudy dark chestnut brown colour, blackish in its ’soul’ but translucent around the edges, under a pale yellowish beige, lacing, quite frothy and dense head consisting of small bubbles and retaining well. Not unpleasant but a bit weird aroma, definitely not very typical for a black IPA: I get liquorice and even salmiac at a first glance, dry spruce, black olives, eucalyptus, cocoa, roasted chestnuts, cold black coffee, pine wood, toasted bread, strong earthy-spicy nutmeg presence, green apple acetaldehyde, hints of dry moss, cigar ashes, burnt wood, black pepper, field flowers, dried thyme, weeds, earth and wet forest leaves, very faint sweet hint of raisins and dried plums. Pretty ’clean’ onset, not as estery as I expect from Fantôme, some dried fruits but very little to no sweetness, not much sourishness either (as there is practically no sweetness to balance out, this is probably a good thing) but a lot of umami taste for sure, very nutty right from the start, roasted but still recognisably ’Belgian’ in its ’green apple peel’ acetaldehyde presence, with a soft carbonation and smooth, lean mouthfeel; minerally touch in the middle, a bit salty (salmiac) even, bittering already over a backbone of grainy, nutty and eventually roasted malts, with a deep, somewhat dull roasted bitterness in the end (coffee grounds) paired with an increasingly strong hop bitterness, peppery and earthy, a bit floral, with those weird eucalyptus and nutmeg aromas returning retronasally but very subtly so; the last impression is a bone dry hop bitterness indeed, spicy and drying the back of the mouth for a long time, with a salty touch to it. Alcohol remains perfectly hidden, as it ought to be in a 6% ABV beer. I expected an atypical BIPA to come out of this brewery, but I somehow miss the more ethereal, citrussy, American-style hoppiness. I guess this can be viewed as a BIPA interpretation deeply rooted in European noble hops traditions, but it is very earthy and a bit ’dirty’ too and I cannot help but wonder if more ’cleansiness’ could improve this. The very bitter taste, combining roastedness with hop bitterness as one expects from the style, will appeal to those who like BIPA, though there is little sweetness to balance it (even less than I normally prefer); in warming up, it does show a gentle, soft caramelly sweetness though, so it gets more balanced as it approaches room temperature. Anyway, I did not expect a typical citrussy American BIPA coming out of this brewery, of course... Quite fascinating beer, that is for sure, but perhaps not so much my personal taste when it comes to BIPAs (I think a little more malt sweetness could have made this a bit less harsh) - yet I hasten to add that just any Belgian addition to this young beer style is more than welcome to me. Lastly, I would recommend serving this beer at cellar temperature: it gets notably ’friendlier’ and more inviting as it warms up, often a good sign when it comes to beer quality...